Karnataka HC stays order to block Twitter accounts of Congress, Bharat Jodo Yatra

Nov 08, 2022

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], November 8 : Karnataka High Court on Tuesday stayed the lower court order directing Twitter to block accounts of Congress and its Bharat Jodo Yatra handle.
The relief is subject to the party removing material from their handles that offend MRT Music's copyrights.
The Karnataka High Court today allowed the appeal preferred by the Indian National Congress against a civil court order which directed Twitter to block the national party's user account and that of Bharat Jodo.
Earlier on Monday, a Bengaluru court gave directions to temporarily block the Twitter accounts of the Congress party and Bharat Jodo Yatra for allegedly infringing the statutory copyright owned by MRT Music "by illegally using sound records of the film KGF Chapter-2".
A complaint was filed by MRT music and FIR was lodged against Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh and Supriya Shrinate at Yashwanthpur police station under the provisions of the Copyright Act, the Information Technology Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The complainant MRT music's manager M Naveen Kumar had alleged that Ramesh had posted two videos of the yatra on his official Twitter handle, in which popular songs from KGF-2 film were used without permission.
"We have read on social media about an adverse order from a Bengaluru court against INC and BJY SM handles. We were neither made aware of nor present at court proceedings. No copy of the order has been received. We're pursuing all the legal remedies at our disposal," the party had said in a tweet.
The Bharat Jodo Yatra entered its Maharashtra leg on Monday evening. The yatra has already covered parts of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.